The Spiritual Battle In Keeping The Pregnancy

October 31, 2024

Let me take this opportunity to thank God for [how] far He has brought me and my family.

I just wish to share briefly my story with hopes that it would encourage someone who never wished to have a baby due to its life demands or any other reasons. And to those who may prefer abortion, than [the] life of the baby. I may not make a good flow of the story as expected or as it should be, so please forgive me. This is because of the mixed feelings right away that are taking place inside me with heartbeat patterns changing as I write this.

I am a victim of several miscarriages which I never knew its source, and which doctors never knew its reasons but kept on wondering on my case. I lost hope when I heard my Gynecologist saying, “Magdalene, you’re so young to lose babies.” That statement hit my heart like a sword cutting flesh without a bone. To me, this meant that she could not understand why I was losing pregnancies. So if the person trained to know the challenges like these and their sources cannot comprehend my situation, who will? This was the same time when she asked my husband to keep on talking to me and be closer to me than ever before or else, take me to a counselor because she saw high chances of depression.

This was after the fourth miscarriage that I had to visit the doctor. There are other miscarriages that happened as the menstrual cycle, not less than four as well. This type of miscarriage mostly happened in the first or the second week when it was still in the blood. I could differentiate it by its colour, the abdominal pain I would go through, and the short time it would take to shed. Another sign was the way I would appear physically to be lighter skin than before. Then after around two weeks of the miscarriage, I would be back to normal.

My first experience of losing a baby happened immediately after our wedding, three weeks after honeymoon. I knew I was expectant, and I kept on being sickly from low appetite to backache and throwing up often. I had no experience of marriage before, so I knew It was normal to overwork yourself. It was my duty to respect anyone in the new family more so the parents-in-law. I found my sister-in-law in that family. We schooled together throughout high school, and we were great friends who severally aspired to be Nuns. She desired to be an active nun while I desired to be a Contemplative Carmelite Nun, always behind closed doors in prayer praying for everyone and for the entire world before [the] Eucharist. My new parents never wanted me to be close to my sister-in-law so each one of us would be given a task that would take her almost a whole day that we may not have time to be together.

One morning we were sent to cultivate the garden separately, but my husband told them I was unable to do that because I had been sick for several days. He took me to the hospital the same day nearby. After diagnosis and answering all the questions the doctor wanted to know, he gave me six tablets to swallow, and later injected me. We went home around six in the evening and after two hours, excruciating abdominal pain began. Not sure what it was since I never had a baby inside me before to know why the pain. I was taken back there by the parents-in-law, alone without my husband. Since the doctor was their friend and neighbour, they told her to take care of me and I was injected again. We immediately left the facility and upon arriving home, the final excruciation occurred which brought out everything. I cried out throughout the night and in the morning, I watched my husband burn the fetus with fire, something that increased a feeling of [being] unwanted because I couldn’t give birth.

We moved back to the city after a week, and I continued with medication and [was] advised to try pregnancy again after six months. This time I was successful, and I was the happiest woman on the planet. But the challenge I had during the pregnancy was of its own standard. The delivery day I was all alone in the house. Around 9 am is when the pangs began chasing me from the house to the hospital. I called my husband, and I couldn’t get him on [the] phone. So I left a message that I had left to the hospital. Around 5 pm is when he saw the message and showed up at the hospital. After the doctors confirmed everything, I was induced and taken to [the] labour room. Here my husband called the parents and told them that I had been taken to [the] labour room since I asked him to accompany me there. I took more than five hours as the baby arrives and goes back. That was, I labored for more than five hours.

I had carried with me a Brown Scapular which I can say, saved me. I took my scapular after I lost all hopes of seeing my baby, I made a simple prayer to St. Jude to take care of my son in case I die—just to save my son. I wore it and within ten minutes I was done, the baby came out. I survived theatre knife. What followed was severe bleeding [and] doctors kept asking where the blood was coming from. When the baby was given to me, I had no milk for him at all. It took me a week with the baby crying day and night without breastfeeding anything. The temperatures rose every time above forty. The sixth day is when I was directed by someone to this Pediatrician Hospital. After they diagnosed the baby, they said in the next 12 hours the vital organs of the baby were to shut completely. No one advised me to give the baby something else to replace milk for him to survive. Even the doctors where I delivered the baby, every day I took the baby to them, and as the baby was dehydrating, they only told me to keep coming back and not to give the baby water. This baby was to be robbed from me soon because since birth nothing was put on the stomach. He was admitted right away and was on the drip throughout the night and by morning the baby had revived to look like a baby. The dehydrated body recovered its shape after the night drip.

Just to cut short the long story, the other four miscarriages were evident because it was a hospital issue. Three of them happened within a short time, almost one year because I was in need of a baby. Immediately after one miscarriage, I was trying another one crying to God that I needed my baby back. That’s why I was risking to conceive again. That is after a miscarriage, I could take a break of one month and conceive again but without any peace because I was always afraid of the past experience. So it happened that the doctor pleaded with me that no matter how much I felt I wanted a baby, I should take a break of about six months to conceive again, or it would bring a bad infection to the womb and that would lead to the scrap of the entire womb and never again to conceive. This sparked fear on my heart straight away and I was so cautious than before. All the pregnancies that miscarried with the mantle of the priesthood on my head happened the night after going before the Lord in the church. I always cried before Him to spare my pregnancies, but He always assured me that the miscarriage was underway, and I should leave the matter to Him.

Having received the message from Him and a surety that the baby in my womb would be departing from my womb tonight, wasn’t easy but I always comforted myself that He would give me the baby at His own time. I couldn’t comprehend it at all that He, as the author of life, has allowed it to happen. And then, why couldn’t he wait until His right time to give the baby of His choice [rather] than allowing me to go through all those trials? After it happens is when my heart would feel the real pain of being separated from the once-growing baby, anticipated to bring joy in the near future. I cried nonstop with no one to console me. All I wanted was my baby and not another one, but the one who has left me. One day as I was writing my journal, he gave me John chapter 9, about Jesus’ healing of a man born blind. I thought Jesus, you can also heal me from miscarriages and save the innocent blood. I kept on asking Him why is the innocent blood which neither the mother nor the baby can fight for? This is the answer I received from him, “It was not your sins or the sins of the conceived babies that this is happening. The enemy of whom I created you to be wishes you were never born and so he is at war with the fruit of your womb. But I will triumph in this fight at the end.”

I didn’t know when would be the end. So, every time I went for the adoration was tears and tears asking God if He would bring my baby. All I want to say here is that—there are spiritual and physical battles that the highest rulers and authorities of the nether world can rise against you. And without God fighting this for you, you may end up losing terribly. In the year 2022, July, the Lord came to end the battle of miscarriage. But the enemy tried so hard, two nights consecutively, to take it away. But surely the Lord is faithful. I had lost hope that even this one by tomorrow morning it will be no more, but it didn’t happen. This pain was beginning from midnight nonstop to 6 am —the battle to cause the pregnancy or to save it. I came to realize later that my children were being given as sacrifice in exchange [for] wealth by my in-laws, through my husband, and that was the last sacrifice meant to seal the deal. If they were to succeed in this, I was to be hit with severe depression and after a short while die, also as a sacrifice. The Lord came in for an intervention to redeem what He created me for—the calling which would be sealed through anointing at His right time, according to the journal I had with him during the time of desperation due to the same reason of miscarriage. I know the Lord cannot lie since He isn’t a human being. I believe and trust that that time will come to pass. Today I have a beautiful baby girl who gives me joy and warms the entire house with her presence. She carries all the joy I lacked, and I bless the Lord always for saving me, my baby, and my family as well.

Just to encourage those who may be experiencing either delays of conceiving or miscarriages, God hasn’t closed His eyes on you. Just remember this, Jesus fought many battles to save humankind—sometimes to the point of thinking that God Had left Him alone, ( Matthew 27:45-47) “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” and again He says, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me.” (Luke 22:42).

So these are some of the trials that come to triumph us in faith for God to be glorified because if we are the true followers of Christ, definitely we will bear the mark of Christ through suffering. This is the reason He says, “Truly, truly, I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor a messenger greater than the one who sent him” (Jn 13:16). These are trials that could lead me to commit suicide, but the Lord came for my rescue. I believe if it were not [for] God’s, “NO”, which opposed men’s approval that I should be no more, the world would have rejoiced. I mean the ruler of this world would have rejoiced the choice that was made over my life, my children, and my family.

As I conclude, let’s pray for God’s protection always, because none of [us] ladies is aware of the covenants made in the families we go to settle, ready to begin a new family. The Scripture says, “A woman giving birth to a child has pain because the hour has come, but when her baby is born, she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world.” (John 16:21) By this scripture, it was accomplished that I no longer remember what I went through and those tough times but the joy of having this little girl with me, having survived the final miscarriage brings all joy to my heart. So anyone out there who feels weary or who has not seen the blessings of the baby yet, be encouraged that one day, one time the dawn will come after a long night full of turbulence and all sorts of wickedness. So all praise and Glory be to God who created Heaven and earth and all that dwells in it. Choose life, Amen.